Once Ãcariya
Mun was wandering dhutanga in the Chiang Mai
mountains with two other monks, Ãcariya
Khao of Wat Tham Klong Phen monastery in Udon Thani
province and Ãcariya
Mahã
Thongsak of Wat Suddhawat monastery in Sakon Nakhon
province. As they reached a narrow gap in the path
leading up the mountain, they chanced upon a large,
solitary elephant whose owner had released it and
then wandered off someplace. All they could see
there was a gigantic elephant with huge six-foot
tusks searching for food –
quite a fearsome sight. They conferred among
themselves about how to proceed. This was the only
path up the mountain, and it allowed no room for
going around the elephant. Ãcariya
Mun told Ãcariya
Khao to speak with the elephant, which was eating
bamboo leaves at the side of the path. Standing
about twenty yards away with its back to them, it
had yet to notice their approach. Ãcariya
Khao addressed the elephant:

“Big
brother elephant, we wish to speak with you.”

At first, the elephant didn’t
clearly hear his voice, but it did stop chewing the
bamboo leaves.

“Big
brother elephant, we wish to speak with you.”

Clearly hearing this, the elephant suddenly swung
around to face the monks. It stood stock-still, its
ears fully extended.

“Big
brother elephant, we wish to speak with you. You are
so very big and strong. We’re
just a group of monks, so weak and so very
frightened of you, big brother. We would like to
walk past where you’re
standing. Would big brother please move over a bit
so that we have room to pass by? If you keep
standing there, it really frightens us, so we don’t
dare walk past.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the elephant
immediately turned to the side and thrust its tusks
into the middle of a clump of bamboo, signaling its
intention to let them pass, unharmed. Seeing it
facing the clump of bamboo, Ãcariya
Mun told the others that they could continue on as
it would not bother them now. The two monks invited
Ãcariya
Mun to walk between them, Ãcariya
Khao walking in front and Ãcariya
Mahã
Thong Sak following behind. They walked past in
single file only six feet from the elephant’s
rear end, without incident. But as they were walking
away, the hook on Ãcariya
Mahã
Thong Sak’s
umbrella got tangled by chance in some bamboo just a
few yards past the elephant. It defied all attempts
to extricate it, so he was forced to struggle with
it for quite some time. Terrified of the elephant
– which was now looking
right at him – he was soon
drenched in sweat. Fighting desperately to
disentangle the hook, he glanced up at the eyes of
the elephant, which stood there like a huge stuffed
animal. He could see that its eyes were bright and
clear. In truth, its countenance inspired affection
rather than fear, but at that moment his fear
remained strong. When he finally did get free, his
fear subsided, and he realized that this elephant
was a very endearing animal. Seeing that they were
all safely past, Ãcariya
Khao turned to the elephant.

As soon as he finished speaking, the sound of
crunching, breaking bamboo filled the air.

Later the monks praised this intelligent elephant,
agreeing it was an animal that inspired affection
and sympathy. The only faculty it lacked was the
ability to speak. As they were discussing this,
Ãcariya
Mahã
Thong Sak was curious to hear Ãcariya
Mun’s
reaction, so he asked:

“Were
you able to read that elephant’s
mind the whole time, from the moment we spoke to it
until we passed clear of it? Since it was so
endearing, I’d really like
to know. When it first heard us call out, suddenly
turning around to face us in an agitated fashion, I
was sure it was about to charge and crush us to
pieces right then and there. But as soon as it
understood the situation, it had a change of heart
– almost like a person in
an animal’s body –
and quickly thrust its tusks into
the middle of that clump of bamboo, standing very
still. Clearly it seemed to be telling us: ‘You
little brothers can come now. Big brother won’t
do anything. Big brother has put away his weapons.
Believe me, come along.’ “

Ãcariya
Mahã
Thong Sak then teased Ãcariya
Khao:

“Ãcariya
Khao is really amazing, speaking with an animal as
though it was just another human being: ‘Big
brother, your little brothers are frightened and
dare not pass. Please make way so that we can go by
without fearing big brother.’
As soon as it received this bit of flattery, it was
so pleased that it immediately prepared to make way
for us. But this little brother was really clumsy. I
got past big brother only to get my umbrella hook
caught up in the bamboo. Try as I might I couldn’t
get it free. It was determined to keep me there with
big brother. My heart sank at that moment –
I was afraid that big brother
wouldn’t play fair.”

Ãcariya
Mun laughed heartily hearing Ãcariya
Mahã
Thong Sak teasing Ãcariya
Khao about being clever enough to talk to an
elephant. He assured them that he had been paying
attention to the elephant’s
mental state.

“Of
course I was focusing my attention there. I’ve
read the minds of birds and monkeys with far less
reason than this. This was a matter of life and
death, how could I avoid it?”

Ãcariya
Mahã
Thong Sak wanted to know what the elephant was
thinking when Ãcariya
Mun focused on it.

“When
it first heard us, it was startled –
that’s why it turned
around so quickly. It thought only of preparing to
fight. But seeing us dressed in yellow robes, it
knew instinctively that we could be trusted, for it’s
quite used to seeing monks. Its owner has long since
trained it not to endanger them. So when Ãcariya
Khao addressed it in a pleasant tone, calling it
‘big
brother’, it was hugely
pleased and immediately got out of the way.”

“Did
it understand every word that Ãcariya
Khao said to it?”

“Of
course it did. Otherwise, how could it be trained to
haul logs down from the mountains? If it couldn’t
understand, it would probably have been disposed of
as useless long ago. This kind of animal must be
trained until it knows man’s
language well before it can be made to perform
various tasks. This particular elephant is over a
hundred years old. Look at its tusks –
they’re almost six feet
long. It must have lived among people for a long
time. Its owner is relatively young, yet he’s
still able to drive it to work. How could it not
understand human speech? It’s
certain to have no problem.”

“What
was it thinking when it turned and stuck its tusks
into the clump of bamboo?”

“Well,
it understood the situation, as I said, and so was
giving way to us. It didn’t
think of doing anything else.”

“Did
you focus on its mind the whole time we were walking
past it? What was it thinking just as we walked by?”

“All
I saw was the elephant giving way. It wasn’t
thinking about anything else.”

“The
reason I asked: I was worried that as we were
walking past it might have thought it would like to
attack us – just for
sport, as animals sometimes do.”

“You
have an uncommonly prolific imagination, Mahã
Thong Sak. If you enjoyed thinking and asking
probing questions like this about matters of
substance then you could certainly expect to
transcend dukkha one day. But you’re
like most people– you
insist on wasting your time thinking about inane
matters instead of useful ones, and you probably don’t
care to change. Are you going to keep pondering this
matter, asking about that elephant all night without
the slightest regard for Dhamma?”

With this warning, Ãcariya
Mahã
Thong Sak dropped the whole affair. He was afraid
that pressing the matter further would result in an
even more severe rebuke.

MANY MONKS WERE REBUKED for speaking carelessly to
Ãcariya
Mun or speaking without good reason. Some even went
mad afterwards. One rather obtrusive monk lived with
Ãcariya
Mun for a short while. When Ãcariya
Mun made a comment, this monk liked to chime in
expressing his own views. When he first arrived,
Ãcariya
Mun frequently warned him to mind his own business.
He advised him to keep a close watch on his thoughts
and restrain the impulse to speak out. Monks
dedicated to the practice must know how to properly
conduct themselves. Those who are mindful will see
the inadequacies of a mind that wants to flow out.
But it seems that this monk was not as interested as
he should have been in Ãcariya
Mun’s
teaching.

Ãcariya
Mun had a unique habit of taking the animals, or the
people, that he encountered on almsround as objects
of contemplation, using them to teach the monks
walking behind him. He commented out loud on what he
observed, as though speaking to no one in
particular. One day, he spied a cute little calf
playfully running around its mother. At first it
didn’t
see the monks approaching; but as they came abreast,
it looked around startled and raced to its mother’s
side, nuzzling in under her neck, then peering out
to look at the monks with fear in its eyes. Seeing
the calf run up to her, the cow quickly turned her
head to look in the direction of the monks, then
remained impassive, as animals do when they are
accustomed to seeing monks daily. But the calf
remained under her chin, staring out distrustfully.
Observing them, Ãcariya
Mun commented in a general way about the difference
between the reaction of the calf and that of its
mother.

“That
cow is quite unperturbed, but its calf is so
frightened it looks like it wants to pick her up and
flee.14 As soon as it got a glimpse of us, it ran
bawling to its mother for help. People are just the
same – they rush to find a
reliable refuge. If they are near their mother, they
will run to her. If they are near their father, they
will rush to him. People invariably lean on family
and friends for support. Rarely do they think about
relying on themselves. When we are young, we expect
to rely on other people in one way; when we grow up,
we expect to rely on them in another way; and when
we grow old, we still expect to rely on others in
yet a different way. Very few of us turn inward,
looking for support within ourselves. By constantly
looking for someone else to lean on, we tend to
foster our own weakness and so never allow ourselves
to become truly self-reliant.

“We
monks are the same as lay people. Having ordained,
we become lazy about studying. Worrying that it will
be painful and difficult, we become lazy about
practicing the way. We never seem to finish what we
start, for no sooner do we have a good idea and
begin to put it into practice than laziness creeps
in, blocking our progress. Lacking the ability to
help ourselves, we have to look to others for
support. Otherwise, we couldn’t
carry on in this life. The maxim: attãhi
attano nãtho
–
oneself is one’s own
refuge – is meaningless
for us if we cannot breath through our own noses.
Dhutanga monks who are dedicated to the practice
shouldn’t always have to
depend on others for life and breath.

“Listen
to your teacher, think about what he teaches, and
commit yourselves to attaining it. Don’t
let his teaching just slip through your grasp to no
avail. Be persistent. Consider what he says and
follow his example until you see the benefits within
yourselves. Then you no longer need to lean on him
for support. You’ll be
breathing through your own noses, meaning you will
have developed the knowledge and wisdom needed to
rid yourselves of dukkha. Gradually, you will
become more confident, more self-reliant, until
finally you become full-fledged, fully-independent
monks in your own right.”

Ãcariya
Mun brought up this matter to give the monks on
almsround with him something to contemplate. As he
paused for a moment, the rather obtrusive monk began
to prattle away on his own without considering the
impropriety of such an intrusion. Perhaps this monk’s
idiocy struck a dissonant chord deep within Ãcariya
Mun, for he turned around and gave him a severe
rebuke that took the other monks aback, making them
all somewhat apprehensive.

“You
must be mad! You’re like a
rabid dog that pounces and chews furiously on any
old piece of wood tossed at it. Why don’t
you look inside yourself where this madness arises.
You’ll go crazy if you don’t
curtail this sort of mindless prattle.”

Ãcariya
Mun then turned around and walked back to the
monastery without another word. Arriving at the
monastery, the monks noticed something peculiar
about the obtrusive monk –
he seemed stunned, eating very little. Seeing his
odd behavior, the monks kept quiet, as if nothing
had happened. They were afraid he would feel
embarrassed. For the rest of the day life in the
monastery continued as normal, each monk applying
himself to his meditation. But later, during the
night when all was quiet, they heard someone cry out
in a deranged, incoherent voice. They immediately
rushed over to find the monk lying in his hut,
tossing deliriously about, mumbling something about
being sorry for offending Ãcariya
Mun so rudely. Shocked by this sight, some of them
hurried off to get the local villagers to help take
care of him. They brought some herbal remedies for
him to take, then massaged his limbs for a while
until he finally calmed down and fell asleep for the
rest of the night. The next morning someone took him
to a doctor for treatment. His condition soon
improved, though he did have occasional relapses.
When he was well enough to travel, they sent him
home. There was no further news about his condition
after that.

Ãcariya
Mun’s
reprimands varied with circumstances. A mild
scolding was usually sufficient to promote
mindfulness in the present and increase vigilance in
the future. However, if someone did something that
prompted a severe reprimand, but lacked the good
judgment to make use of it, then it could well be
damaging, as we have seen. So monks living with
Ãcariya
Mun tended to be exceedingly vigilant and always
self-controlled. Just because they had lived with
him for a long time didn’t
mean they could expect to get overly familiar with
him, for he was the type of person who didn’t
readily countenance familiarity in anyone. His
students could never afford to be complacent
– sometimes even the deer that’s
wary of hunters gets shot.